Understanding Urban Villages and Vernacular Capitalism in Delhi
The video explores urban villages in Delhi, the relationship between rent and capital, and the vernacular form of capitalism in urban India.
00:00:04 The video is a conversation between Sushmita Pati and Gautam Bhan about Sushmita's book on properties of rent and urban politics. They discuss the concept of Urban Villages in Delhi and their significance in the city's growth and development.
📚 Urban Villages in Delhi emerged as the city expanded southwards in the 1950s, but their presence was overlooked in the development plans.
🌃 While the city grew around them, these Villages retained their residential areas, leading to a unique coexistence of urbanization and tradition.
📝 The Urban Villages became spaces for the middle class, universities, and defense bases, with the inhabitants adapting to their changing surroundings.
00:11:43 The video discusses the urban villages in Delhi and how they have evolved over time. It explores the relationship between rent and capital and their roles in the global economy. The villages serve as affordable housing spaces and engage with the global economy through rent, which is distinct from capital. Rent ensures control and ownership of the valuable urban housing resource, while capital remains anonymized.
🏙️ Manufacturing units remain within the city due to the impossibility of moving to the outskirts.
👥 The urban prokaryote, a new labor class, enters the city seeking middle-class living in affordable areas.
🏘️ Urban Villages in Delhi evolve as spaces for migrant workers and garment manufacturing, leading to struggles over regularization.
00:23:20 The video discusses the relationship between rent and capital in urban villages in India, highlighting the importance of social institutions like bhaichara and kunba in managing properties. It explores how rent is a story of partnerships and collectivities, while capital focuses on individuality. The video also touches on the uneasy relationship between rent and global speculative capital.
💡 Rent is not just about money, but also a political and social category that creates social relations.
📚 The book explores the idea that money scales and holds the economy, emphasizing the importance of social institutions like bhichara and kunba.
💰 The relationship between rent and capital is uneasy, as seen in the story of a borrower who has to remove his landlord as a partner.
00:34:58 In the video 'City Scripts | Author in Conversation | Sushmita Pati with Gautam Bhan', the conversation explores the vernacular form of capitalism in urban India through the lens of communities, caste, and property division. It discusses how families and associations invest in and gentrify their properties to increase rents, and the role of panchayats and kunbas in negotiating with the state. The video also highlights the differential entry of non-jart communities into this form of capitalism, specifically focusing on the jata and balmiki communities in Munirka Village.
📚 The video discusses the concept of vernacular forms of capitalism in Indian villages.
💰 It explores how communities in these villages invest money to gentrify their property and increase rents.
🌆 The video also highlights the role of caste and community in the urbanization process.
00:46:38 This video discusses the differences in upward mobility and aspirations between the Jat and Balmiki communities in urban villages. It also explores the contradictions and complexities within these communities’ relationships with the state and the impact of reservation policies.
🔑 The urban Dalit and Jat communities in Delhi have different experiences with land ownership and upward mobility.
🌍 The Jat community has a complex relationship with the state, with a mix of anger, hurt, and pushback against formalization.
💡 The reservation system in government jobs has allowed for a vernacular capitalism to occur along caste lines.
00:58:16 A conversation about the imageability and identity of urban villages in Delhi. The villages are seen differently by city people and village dwellers, highlighting social and cultural tensions. The discussion also touches on informal housing and the impact of globalization on Delhi's electoral politics.
📚 The video discusses the perception of Urban Villages in Delhi by both the city people and the villagers themselves, focusing on imageability and identity.
🏘️ The conversation also explores the concept of informal rental housing in Delhi's Urban Villages and how they are different from slum rental housing.
💰 The interview highlights the broader concept of rent beyond just housing, including intellectual property and the formation of networks and cliques in academic and social circles.
01:09:53 City Scripts | Author in Conversation | Sushmita Pati with Gautam Bhan. The video discusses the construction and negotiation of rent in informal settlements, as well as the difference between rent in global North cities and the global South. It also explores the relationship between electoral politics and rent, highlighting how wealthy individuals invest in politics as a way to establish themselves. The video concludes by emphasizing the importance of pleasure in reading academic texts and congratulating the author on their work.
📚 The video discusses the construction and negotiation of rent in Bichara communities, highlighting the use of maps and agreements.
🌍 The speaker compares the concept of rent in global North cities like San Francisco and New York with its portrayal in the global South, emphasizing the collectivity and investment aspect in the latter.
🗳️ The video explores the connection between electoral politics and rent, particularly how individuals who have made money through rent invest in politics and elections to establish themselves and gain credibility.
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